Opportunity Quotes

Most popular opportunity quotes

Watch out for emergencies. They are your big chance.

adversity

Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them. - Malcolm Gladwell quote.
Outliers are those who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them.

success

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

greatness

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison quote.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

hard work

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage. - Benjamin Disraeli quote.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.
— Ecclesiastes 8:15

biblical

Successful investing requires this crazy combination of gumption and patience, and then being ready to pounce when the opportunity presents itself, because in this world opportunities just don't last very long. - Charlie Munger quote.
Successful investing requires this crazy combination of gumption and patience, and then being ready to pounce when the opportunity presents itself, because in this world opportunities just don't last very long.

investing

Temptations, unlike opportunities, will always give you many second chances. - Orlando Aloysius Battista quote.
Temptations, unlike opportunities, will always give you many second chances.

temptation

Be cautious. Opportunity does the knocking for temptation too.

temptation

Opportunities are never lost. The other fellow takes those you miss.
Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards. - William Arthur Ward quote.
Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. - Milton Berle quote.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

action

It is often hard to distinguish between the hard knocks in life and those of opportunity.

adversity

Opportunity is sometimes hard to recognize if you're only looking for a lucky break.

luck

Opportunity's favorite disguise is trouble.
Frank Tyger in Rotary “Scandal Sheet” (Graham, Texas)

adversity

Opportunities are often things you haven't noticed the first time around.
Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.

adversity

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade. - Tom Peters quote.
If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.
Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along. - Hugh Allen quote.
Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along.

action

Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.

adversity

Opportunity is a bird that never perches. - Claude Maxwell MacDonald quote.
Opportunity is a bird that never perches.
One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.

adversity

Today's opportunities erase yesterday's failures. - Gene Brown quote.
Today's opportunities erase yesterday's failures.
Gene Brown in News-Times (Danbury, Connecticut)

failure

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. - Sara Teasdale quote.
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
Sara Teasdale “The Philosopher,” in Poems That Touch the Heart, edited by A. L. Alexander

witty how to live life wise

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity. - Oprah Winfrey quote.
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

preparation luck

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. - Albert Einstein quote.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

difficulties problems

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.

problems

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

loss happiness

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. - Mark Twain quote.
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

funny

Carpe diem. (Seize the day.) - Horace quote.
Carpe diem. (Seize the day.)
It is not impossibilities which fill us with the deepest despair, but possibilities which we have failed to realize.
Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time. - Hippocrates quote.
Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.
Where legitimate opportunities are closed, illegitimate opportunities are seized. Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility. - Lyndon B. Johnson quote.
Where legitimate opportunities are closed, illegitimate opportunities are seized. Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility.
When a fool has made up his mind, the market has gone by.

Spanish proverbs proverbs decision-making

The opportunities of man are limited only by his imagination.  But so few have imagination that there are ten thousand fiddlers to one composer.
Charles F. Kettering Prophet of Progress: Selections from the Speeches of Charles F. Kettering

imagination

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. - Francis Bacon quote.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks, and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.
We are all faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. - John W. Gardner quote.
We are all faced with a series of great opportunities—brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

problems

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had tried and failed. - William James quote.
He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had tried and failed.
When U walk up to opportunity's door—don't knock it. Kick that bitch in, smile, and introduce yourself.
Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.

trouble

Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away. - Doug Larson quote.
Sometimes opportunity knocks, but most of the time it sneaks up and then quietly steals away.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. - Orison Swett Marden quote.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.
Opportunity never knocks twice.
— American proverb

proverbs American proverbs

Opportunities, like eggs, come one at a time.
— American proverb

American proverbs proverbs

Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day. - Rick Warren quote.
Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. - Sun Tzu quote.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
A person who misses a chance and the monkey who misses its branch can't be saved.

proverbs Indian proverbs

When you are creating opportunities, it's essential to find the key stakeholders and bring them along with you. Make them a part of the process. By making it clear that you are looking to collaborate instead of compete, you'll earn their trust and their respect. - Fran Hauser quote.
When you are creating opportunities, it's essential to find the key stakeholders and bring them along with you. Make them a part of the process. By making it clear that you are looking to collaborate instead of compete, you'll earn their trust and their respect.
Fran Hauser The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate

success career

To create an opportunity, start with a casual conversation, and then, if you receive an enthusiastic response, move on to a more formal proposal. For this initial conversation, give him or her the headline first. What is the subject you are there to discuss? Then, break your idea down into three bullet points that summarize: (1) the opportunity you are capitalizing on (or the problem you're trying to solve), (2) a few data points that demonstrate the size of the opportunity, and (3) why you're the one to address it. - Fran Hauser quote.
To create an opportunity, start with a casual conversation, and then, if you receive an enthusiastic response, move on to a more formal proposal. For this initial conversation, give him or her the headline first. What is the subject you are there to discuss? Then, break your idea down into three bullet points that summarize: (1) the opportunity you are capitalizing on (or the problem you're trying to solve), (2) a few data points that demonstrate the size of the opportunity, and (3) why you're the one to address it.